Throne of Thunder: Mage Tactics & Tips

Hi guys! So I got some positive feedback on the ToT Mage specific guide idea. I'll be creating space for each boss and hopefully you guys can help fill in the blanks I have good experience of the raid myself but don't quite feel comfortable writing it all, but I will keep it up to date and formatted.

This thread is for discussing Mage specific tactics for each boss and how to maximize your DPS (Normal & Heroic). I will update it as discussion in the thread develops, feel free to PM me if I miss out on adding something to the guide.

Mage TacticsConductive Water
You need to ensure you are in this for as long as you possibly can be.

Focused Lightning
Do not use Invisibility when kiting this. It will drop it early.

Ionization (HEROIC)
1) Use Greater Invis to dispel yourself. Blink out of Conductive Water with around 4 second left of the debuff and cast it. Greater Invis will be off cooldown for every Ionization.

2) You can alternatively use Ice Block just BEFORE Ionization is cast, this will prevent you from getting the debuff. Or use Ice Block to remove it, again make sure you are outside of Conductive Water if you are going to remove the debuff. You can spec Cold Snap so you have several Ice Block uses.

Lightning Storm (HEROIC)
Lightning storm (Heroic): It's easiest to dodge the lightning orbs on the gratings at the edge of the room. People tend to go with personal preference on which defensive cooldowns to use here, so a quick list of the useful ones:

1) Temporal Barrier is a strong talent for the lightning storm, as it heals back the damage taken. Ice Barrier will be gone after a few ticks, but it's worth using if you've taken Ice Barrier for other parts of the fight (Ionization, Focused Lightning).

2) Hit Ice Block if you think you can't survive.

Maximising DPS
1) Save cooldowns for Conductive Water.

2) Do your best to keep DPSing while avoiding Lightning Storm. This is a key area where DPS is significantly lost.

I recently switched to mage, but these are the things I have learned thus far.

Horridon:

You can spread combustion off Horridon. Easy to get those big ignites off of him
As frost glyph of water elemental ensures that your elemental is always in range on the adds for freeze
lining up the pink dino on heroic next to the boss will allows glyph of ice lance to cleave the add (sometimes)

Tortos:

Whirling turtles that are kicked apply a debuff to anything they pass by. This means save combustion for that.
Frozen orb into the turtles when they come out will slow them and give you plenty of procs to ice lance cleave off
Ice block quake on heroic to save your shield and help healers out.

Megara:

Frozen orb goes back sometimes so make sure the path is clear
Blink for the frost debuff and you can use blazing speed to clear it if you have cinders.

Ji-Kun:

Always get feed young buff and then pop cds. You can alter time to keep the additional seconds on it. Best used after first nest.
quills is very painful so an ice block or alter time at high health could really help out healers.

Dark Animus:

Be very careful if the big add is next to the boss. A good combustion and cleave can kill it leading to wipes.

Iron Qon:

On heroic start of last phase there are 3 dogs and the boss. Great time to combustion spread and top the meters.
Blink over the lines as long as you don't spread debuff
Cold snap is a nice talent here because you can use it with lightning debuff and the reset of ice block can help clear stacks.

Twins:

The second boss is targetable when they pop up. You can throw a dot on it.

Lei Shen:

With ice block you can soak static shock alone.
adds can be frozen so RoF is nice to keep them in place.
Deep Freeze any adds that you get during transition phase. Saves healer mana and is a dps increase.

In addition to the use of iceblock on jinrokh to prevent yourself from getting the ionization debuff, you can talent for cold snap. For the first ionization you use IB and quickly cancel IB the ionization cast, then immediatly use cold snap. Then for the 2nd ionization use IB again, then for the 3rd ionizaton your cold snap cooldown should be gone like 1 or 2 seconds before the ionization cast, so quickly use cold snap and use IB again! Not sure about the 4th ionization as i've never had to deal with that

In addition to the use of iceblock on jinrokh to prevent yourself from getting the ionization debuff, you can talent for cold snap. For the first ionization you use IB and quickly cancel IB the ionization cast, then immediatly use cold snap. Then for the 2nd ionization use IB again, then for the 3rd ionizaton your cold snap cooldown should be gone like 1 or 2 seconds before the ionization cast, so quickly use cold snap and use IB again! Not sure about the 4th ionization as i've never had to deal with that

that's nice and all, but we've found that uptime on boss is lower w/ an IB & Cold Snap strategy than with Greater Invisibility.

2-3 seconds for ice block vs moving out and using defensives? I'm not so sure that's right.

Has anyone checked if the glyph of ice block prevents ionisation being applied? If it does its probably the best way to do it as its only 1 gcd.

The glyph works and as long as you don't need the glyph spot for something else, I'd really reccomend using it. Just ice block 2 seconds before ionization and immediately cancel it and the immunity from the glyph will take care of the rest.

2-3 seconds for ice block vs moving out and using defensives? I'm not so sure that's right.

Has anyone checked if the glyph of ice block prevents ionisation being applied? If it does its probably the best way to do it as its only 1 gcd.

First of all the iceblock trick only works for 3 pools. And you need to iceblock just as you are starting your combustion build with pots and hero going.. With Greater invis you blink out with ~3s left on debuff(and pots and hero is not up), and besides that the storm phase begins just as the debuff expires so you are not really missing much as you would have to move out any way 1-2s later, and it is up for every pool.

Glyph of iceblock have nothing to do with this? as far as i can recall all it does is a frostnova(or reset frost nova?) when ib expires. As long as you cast iceblock before the debuff is applied you wont get it at all. On the first ionisation you will have to use iceblock with ~4-5s on timer and cold snap instantly(wont break IB) in order to have coldsnap up again for 3rd block.

And about Alter time, i can confirm as well that even if you get ionisation during alter time you still have it when it ends, without blowing up.

As for horridon Hc, spec frost, use pet to handle pink direhorn = avoid it haunting you in your sleep..

2-3 seconds for ice block vs moving out and using defensives? I'm not so sure that's right.

With greater invis, you can Ice Floes out of the pool, cast greater invis with 3 secs left on the debuff and then immediately start casting as your dmg mitigation lasts 3 secs upon breaking it. Constant uptime on boss. This also leaves ice block available for lightning storm should 10'orbs be thrown at your face.

Jin'rokh:
(heroic)
If you stand on grated area in during the avoid lightning phase, there is minimal movement and you can nuke the boss still.

This is true, but if everyone stacks there the storm moves to the people. It gets messy so if no one else is doing this then go for it. If not its easy to dodge anyways (plus you can actually run at the storm strike and it helps avoid being pinched.)

Time a pet freeze, frost nova, ice ward to freeze bats just before your frost bomb goes off for hits of around 1.5 million +

Horridon:

Adds on 1st and 3rd door can be frozen, (frost nova, pet freeze etc)

I'm unsure as to whether this is a good tactic to use. It does lots of damage and all but the risk is that if the mobs are frozen and the tank runs slightly out of their hitbox they will target anyone else in their range; if that is a melee dps then they're probably going to die.
Even if you time it perfectly, there's still going to be a fraction of a second where you're putting your melee dps'ers at risk.

Council HM: it's possible to immune frostbite with Iceblock but you have to be very, very fast (I fail with this *a lot*), basically using it as soon as the blue arrow appears on your head. Iceblock also removes biting cold so I spec Cold Snap for this fight.

Iron Qon HM: Blink should be enough to get you out of every windstorm with little running but if you're struggling, speccing Blazing Speed is relatively nice, it's also useful for getting people out of lightning storms fast.

Tortos HM: Cone of Cold on adds if you're short on slows is great. I use temporal shield for stomps but suppose ice barrier would work as well.

Not killed it yet but far as I can tell greater invis and blazing speed will be good for Meg HM for ice beam kiting and / or cinders.

that's nice and all, but we've found that uptime on boss is lower w/ an IB & Cold Snap strategy than with Greater Invisibility.

Yes thats really nice and all, and maybe you can comment without less negativity next time? It can be handy since there is not THAT much room to keep spread and still get rid of the debuff. Our healers are calling out who should go out and get dispelled, if I would just randomly go outside I would take a chance of killing someone else too close to me. I got used to this tactic, and I dont think there is much of a dps lose between running out and use a defensive CD then just stay on your place use IB and quickly cancel it to continue dpsing...

Jin'rokh
1. Tip for dodging Lightning Storm: The lightning balls do not travel in random directions. Watch for the pillars of lightning that spawn around the room. The lightning balls shoot out in a circular fashion from these pillars. You can use this information to better position yourself in the beginning of the phase and from that position you usually only have to move a couple steps a la Rune of Power style to dodge balls.

Megaera
1. Highly recommend Greater Invisibility for this fight. You can use it after evocating in between rampages and get the 90% damage reduction for the first three seconds of Rampage without sacrificing any DPS time. You can also use it to remove cinders on your call. It's just overall an awesome spell for this encounter.

Ji-Kun
1. Use Glyph of Armors if the add DPS on whatever platform you're assigned to feels sufficient. Glyphs of Armors reduces damage taken by Quills. If the add DPS is lackluster for your platform, however, feel free to glyph into CoC.

Durumu
1. AT'ing will remove the Lingering Gaze debuff, but the eye will still follow you and drop a puddle at your location.
2. There's a slight delay before the eye hits you and drops the puddle. Use this to your advantage and blink to the back of the platform at the last few seconds.
3. It IS possible to squeeze in a few fireballs during the maze phase (even possible to evocate if the timing works out as such), don't be afraid to take risks.
4. [Heroic Only] Combustion will be up for every Ice Wall. Save it for a few seconds before Ice Wall phase begins and combust onto the Ice Walls when they appear.

Dark Animus:
1. DO NOT USE MIRROR IMAGES, ICE BLOCK, OR GREATER INVISIBILITY IN THE FIRST PHASE. Don't forget you have these abilities once your little golem add is dead and gone though.
2. Use Ice Barrier during Dark Animus's Interrupting Jolt cast. It interrupts your cast and gives you a substantial shield for the jolt damage.
3. [Heroic Only] General tip for dodging Anima Font: Anima Font has the exact same graphic as the Penetrating Bolts in P1 Sha of Fear, but red instead of blue. Pretend you're dodging them as if you were using Rune of Power, very quick and controlled movement within a very small radius. Dodging Anima Font will become your life on Dark Animus progression. Enjoy.
Iron Qon
1. I strongly advise speccing into Greater Invis for this fight. It can remove all of the spear trail debuffs and the damage reduction is quite useful for the heavy damage phases of the fight (fire phase, fist smash)
2. Use Glyph of Armors. The physical damage reduction from Molten Armor will reduce the damage taken in the last phase by Fist Smash. Your healers will thank you.

Twin Consorts
1. Use your Combustion on cooldown as usual, but save using Inferno Blast afterward until Suen pops out of hiding (Watch Tears of the Sun timer). Usually she'll pop up in melee or will be dragged in by the tank. Spread Combustion to her.
2. [Heroic Only] Make sure to get a Nether Tempest on Suen before she begins channeling Nuclear Inferno. She deflects all damage while she's channeling, but DoTs continue to tick on her.
Lei Shen
1. You can use both Ice Block AND Greater Invisibility to solo soak Static Shock.
2. You can spellsteal the buff 'Amplifier' [Increases damage dealt by 50%. / Increases attack speed by 50%. 20sec duration] from the Unharnessed Powers that spawn when you miss Bouncing Bolts.

One thing I would like to add is for Iron Qon. You can alter time from the back of the room right before her windstorm. AT >> Windstorm sucks you to mid of the room >> POP you are back to the outside of windstorm. Evo yourself to heal while you wait for people to run.